The Rough Guide to West African Music

The Rough Guide to West African Music
Compilation album by
Various artists
Released21 November 1995
GenreWorld, West African music
Length70:42
LabelWorld Music Network
Full series chronology
The Rough Guide to World Music
(1994)
The Rough Guide to West African Music
(1995)
Global Partnership II
(1995)
Complete list

The Rough Guide to West African Music is a world music compilation album originally released in 1995. The second release of the World Music Network Rough Guides series,[1] it largely focuses on Malian music, with six of the twelve tracks coming from that country. This is followed by Senegal (two tracks), and Guinea, Niger, Ghana, and Mauritania (one track each). The compilation was produced by Phil Stanton, co-founder of the World Music Network.[2]

Chris Nickson of AllMusic gave the album four stars, but lamented the broadness of the topic, stating "the real problem with this album isn't the music, which is glorious throughout, but the fact that it suffers from the size of its ambition and the inability to fully realize it."[3] Michaelangelo Matos, writing for the Chicago Reader, praised the record's focus on slow to midtempo music, stating it "succeeds in sustaining a meditative, inner-gazing mood."[4]

  1. ^ Douglas H., Henkle (2012-10-23). "Rough Guide Discography / World Music Network Discography". FolkLib Index : A Library of Folk Music Links. Retrieved 2013-12-21.
  2. ^ World Music Network. "About Us - The WMN Story". Retrieved 2013-12-21.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference AllMusic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Matos, Michaelangelo (5 November 1998). "A Rough Guide to the Rough Guides". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2014-01-10.